Signing

In a taxi on my way to downtown Kampala on one of my last days, I watched two girls having a conversation. One was speaking in Luganda while using sign language and the other was responding using sign language.
It was an awesome to watch their conversation. The girls were fluent in two languages, and one was based on English. I’m lucky if I can use English on it’s own at the best of times. :)

Searching for one bag...

It's bad news when the two women trying to get your bag checked through to Saskatoon call for a third person by saying, "come and see what we are doing."
It wasn't so much they wanted more help that concerned me, but they had the excitement of a child doing something they weren't supposed to.
I started to believe I might never see my bag again.
It was my own fault, the woman checked my bag to London and printed out the baggage tag. Dreading having to clear customs and immigration simply to check-in again, I asked if she could check them into my final destination, which didn't appear on her computer ... initially.
The first woman, called over the second and they typed and chatted excitedly. A bag tag for Sydney came out. I pointed out that, that wasn't Saskatoon, they should be looking for YXE. I was also wishing I had kept my mouth shut.
Then as if someone was looking out for me, the system died. We were left with the bag tag for London, which they put on my bag and it disappeared.

Good news, I saw my bag again in London, Toronto and finally Saskatoon. Yay. I'm not going to lie I had more than a little doubt about seeing it again.

I saw you.

Nakulabye is the best place in Kampala for pork.

However, its meaning is what I find interesting. Nakulabye means I saw you. It was so- called for it’s location in a valley beneath where the king historically lived.

You couldn’t really pass through the area without someone from above being able to see you. They would then say, “I saw you.”

Nakulabye.

ROUS?

When in Sudan I had a moment straight out of the Princess Bride, if you haven’t seen this movie please go and do so.
We were leaving this restaurant well after dark, around 9 p.m. when something big scurried across the road in front of the car.
It was bigger than a cat, but with a long naked tail and it moved like a mouse.
I was sitting in the front seat and I’m sure my eyes bulged.
“Did anyone else see that?” I asked.
There were equally shocked expressions on people in the backseat. They nodded.
“Was that a rat?”
Our driver just laughed.
It instantly took me back to the move. Where the heroes are walking through the woods when someone asked about the ROUS.
“Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist,” one of the characters responds.
Well they do and they are living in Southern Sudan.
That night, one of them ate the hearing aid of one of our travel companions … fortunately it wasn’t in his ear at the time.

Speaking out

I nearly caused an accident yesterday evening.
While running late to meet a friend and head out of town, I hopped on a boda-boda (the ubiquitous motorcycle taxi). Another driver was following us closely, calling, “muzungu, muzungu” (white person) at me.
I turned around, still clinging to my boda, and started to speak to him in Luganda, the main language spoken in Kampala (after English).
He started at me.
Asked me a question in Luganda, I responded.
My boda driver was laughing - the other driver seemed to forget he was driving at 60 km per hour. He was staring at me in disbelief and drifting over the yellow line.
“Taxi,” I yelled in English.
That brought him back to reality. He pulled out of the path of the oncoming bus and sped away.
I still find it a little funny that a few words in the local language can cause such a stir.

Open letter

An open letter to all the first time visitors to Uganda,

1. Please stop moving in herds,
2. People here aren’t going to hurt you. The worst that will happen is you will be relieved of that expensive watch you shouldn’t be wearing anyway,
3. No one is looking to give anyone food poisoning, especially not you, sick people make for bad restaurant business,
4. Stop paying excessively and tipping, especially in local establishments. I know you think you are doing a good thing, but you are driving up the costs of things for locals,
5. Do not pay people for their photos, unless they are street performers and then only maybe. If they say ‘no, I don’t want my picture taken’ then walk away,
6. Stop calling them the slums of Kampala, the area is called Kisenyi and in it are people’s homes. How would you like someone to call your neighbourhood a slum?,
7. Don’t do things you aren’t trained for. If you are an arts student, don’t provide medical ‘advice’ in the ‘slums (see 6).’ People here deserve the same level of care that you would like to receive,
8. Please if you are only coming to preach or feel good about yourself, stay home. People here need doctors and nurses and money, they don’t need to be told by some white person that their needs will be met if they pray. There are enough local priests and pastors here to tell them that.
9. If you want your church dollars to be put to good use, help support local hospitals or schools. Why are there two brand new, very expensive looking churches next to a hospital that is falling apart and can hardly afford to pay staff? People here can pray anywhere, surgery cannot be performed outside. The good news is when people die from a lack of care, they’ll have a nice place for a funeral … if they can afford it.

My question is, if you are afraid of being here, why did you come?
Really take a deep breath, get out past the gates and sanitized accommodation and enjoy Kampala and the countryside of Uganda, it’s called the Pearl of Africa for a reason. Be a tourist and support the local economy as that will help more than you can imagine.

Thank you,
Angela

Scars vs tattoos

I had this grand plan when I came home to get a tattoo, but I’ve apparently decided to go with unintentional scarification instead.
What this means is I am a klutz and will be returning to Canada with more lasting marks than I left with.
A couple of days before I left on the trip I managed to perform minor surgery with my razor on my leg. That is turning into a nice scar.
When I arrived in Kajo Keji County, Southern Sudan, I literally fell out of the back of a truck, resulting in another nice scar.
And this morning while again shaving my legs – I think I know what the hazard is here – I managed to cut up my left lower back on the faucet. Please don’t as me how as I am not even sure.
While trying to perform first aid on my back and hip I realized, this is one of those times it would be nice to travel with someone.
Actually at the rate I am going, I’m going to need to start traveling with my own medical trauma team.
So much of my body is now marked up, I’m not going to have space for a tattoo.

Fences

When the guesthouse said they locked their gates at midnight, they weren’t kidding.

The problem was the security guard who assured me he would always be on the inside to let me in, wasn’t.

So, what’s a girl with a raging head cold and a desire to be asleep to do, when faced with at 12 foot tall iron fence?

Climb it.

After I got over the concern that I would be shot if caught climbing it, I was good to go --even the spikes along the top presented very little problem.

Once safely on the other side, I ran into the guard, who was very apologetic, so much for my concern of getting in trouble.

He showed me how to get around the gate if I was ever locked out again.

So much for security.

Checking

Since the explosion of two bombs, in Kampala, in early July, security checkpoints of sprung up everywhere.
I’ve had my bag search and my body patted down more times in the last few days than in the Seattle airport.
The checkpoints are at higher end stores, entrances to hotels, malls, and hospitals. They are at some of the entrances to the taxi parks.
This is where is becomes confusing. Why only some of the entrances and why am I only checked sometimes?
Also I get the feeling that many of these security guards, armed with their metal detecting wands, have no idea what they are looking for and less idea of what to do if they found something.
I guess it’s good that the government wants to protect the people, but I’m not sure how much more secure people feel.

Crazy Kampala

While Sudan had it’s moments I’m excited to be back in Uganda.
The temperature is hot, but not reaching the almost unbearable levels of Juba, the language I can speak, a little, the people I know and I am free to move around and take public transit.
In some way it feels like nothing has changed, but then I look around to all the new development and the success of my friends and feel like everything has.
And all of a sudden I am back ... crazy Kampala

The view from above

The drive between Juba and Kajo Keji is sketchy to say the least.

So to avoid the 12-hour, death defying drive back, we took to the sky.

The air strip was a fenced off field and the pilot prayed before take off, but it was a smooth journey and took a fraction of the ground time – 35 minutes from take off to landing.

Seen from above, Southern Sudan in the rainy season is beautiful.

Our pilot

Thunderstorms

There are some pretty amazing thunderstorms in this part of Southern Sudan. You can always tell when they are coming by watching the clouds gather.

Spiders

My room is starting to look like a scene from the movie Arachnophobia.
Let me rephrase that, my room is starting to look like what I would imagine a scene in Arachnophobia to look like – I would not actually be able to sit through that movie.
Point being it started with a rather larger spider on the floor under my bed, who was too fast for me to catch and too big for me to kill.
Now I’ve got two other ones hanging out on the wall just outside my mosquito net and there is at least one near my roommates bed.
I’m not even going to mention the number in the bathroom.
Blah.
Spiders, I hate spiders. Why did it have to be spiders.
I’m very glad for my mosquito net, hopefully it will continue to keep the spiders at bay and there will be no more.

…. Update.
One has disappeared.
The only thing worse than seeing several spiders is knowing they are around, but not seeing them.

A nice cup of tea...ish

I have a new addiction, actually it’s an old addiction that is back to haunt me. Tea. African Tea with lots of powered milk, called Nido, and sugar.
I start every day with two cups of the sugary stuff, have at least one during the day and have one with dinner.
The hot water is served in these massive thermoses, the very sight of them make me thrill.
There are side effects of the addiction. I’m almost constantly bouncing off the walls and at night I have to make several trips to the bathroom.

The kids

There are kids everywhere at the school and they are more than delighted to see all of us.

They scream and run close for a chance to shake hands then pose to get their picture taken.

I can’t resist. They are so cute.

Don't talk and drive

So apparently Saskatchewan police aren’t the only ones looking out for people’s cell phone use while they drive.
I was in a car with the pair that had been assigned to help me track down my press credentials.
The driver, Charles, was on the phone, but he was doing a fabulous job driving in the jammed Juba streets, so I wasn’t so worried about it.
Suddenly he started talking louder, so I looked over at him and realized he was holding the phone in his lap.
I looked around to see that we were driving past some police officers directing traffic.
They don’t like it, he said as he skilfully turned the phone off and slid it into the glove box.
So it’s not illegal, but it seems better to not do things the police don’t like.

Frogs?

A distinct feature of our little prefab is frogs.

And no, that’s not slang for something else.

I mean little, well not so little some cases, green-spotted, jumpy frogs.

The first run in came when I was in the shower on the first day. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and something moved across the floor to hide behind the toilet. My first thought was it was the largest cockroach I had ever seen. I almost died. I finished my shower in record time.

With my glasses on, I could see that the intruder was far cuter than a bug.

I coaxed the frog into our garbage container and left him outside.

But, we’ve had more. It must have partially to do with the rainy season and partially to do with my luck, but we’ve had three pet frogs since our arrival.

Two were released, but the third hiding beneath the bed and that’s where he’ll stay, at least until the housekeepers find him.

Pre-fab

There is a distinct lack of permanence to the structures in Juba town. Driving from the airport to our accommodation the driver was pointing out the hotels, known as camps, as we drove past.
“They’re all pre-fab,” he said knowingly.
The pre-fab, short for prefabricated material is a big part of the construction in and around Juba.
They are shipped into the country pre-made and ready to go.
Basically they are like staying in a shipping container, thin metal walls and laminate flooring – but fortunately ours comes with an air conditioner and shower so I’m not complaining.
As one UN worker mentioned to me, no one thinks much past next year.

Our pre-fab hotel

Leg room..

I must have gained some bad flight karma laughing about flights on my way to Calgary, Thursday.
The plane between London and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia had about 6 inches of leg room from the end of one seat to the back of the next. I've never felt so crammed into a plan in my life and of course we were delayed for 45 minutes on the ground in London allowing me to discover the number of uncomfortable positions I'd be able to wedge myself in for the flight.

.. six hours later, I was so desperate for leg space I'd give away someone else's first born for it. I've had my legs cramp and had the flight attendant hit them with the dinner cart, the duty free cart, the breakfast cart, the drink cart...

Apparently the plane to Juba is smaller. Oh, good.

Sanctions

Sanctions, like boycotts and blockades, only work when the government or ruling party (military of individual) cares about their people.
In the case of North Korea – and it’s not that I want to judge Kim Jong Il but – I would suggest the leadership doesn’t care. Millions of people starving to death over the past decades are only the beginning of evidence of this.
So as every nation decides to side with South Korea and up their sanctions the only people that are going to suffer are the average person. The rich will have ways around it and the leaders don’t care.
With more than $200 million not showing up in the country, that's a lot of people to suffer.
The problem is I can’t come up with a better way to tell North Korea that it can’t blow up South Korean ships.

Wildfire

There is a fire that has been burning just north of Prince Albert.

Only one house was lost (the origin of the fire) and no one was hurt.

Here are some of my photos for the paper.

Oil Spills

Ever since I was a kid I’ve thought the worst thing that could happen to the ocean was an oil spill.
The images on TV of people soaping up birds after the Exxon Valdez oil spill forever stuck in my mind.
Even as an adult I feel badly when I hear about after math of the explosion of the British Petroleum rig located off the coast of Louisiana.
According to press reports, “The Gulf Coast is experiencing an ecological disaster … Coastal areas outside of the immediate spill region will be impacted too.”
Reuters warns that some oil is in the Loop Current already "which could carry the oil down to the Florida Keys, Cuba, and East Coast."
It’s horrifying to think of all the beautiful water tainted by oil, but I also hope this will open people’s eyes
In North America we use so much oil and yet so many people life their lives without a thought of how it gets to their cars or how else it’s used as energy.
Around the globe people experience the negative effects of the over consumption of petroleum by the developed world.
Photographs in an exhibition called War Photo, show the mess in Nigeria, where Shell has operated for years with out regard for the environment or human lives — spills that continue for weeks, making farming in impossible, flames burning from leaks and a slick covering the top of bodies of water.
There is so much damage that will be done by this latest of oil spills but maybe it will be the thing that finally shows people why they need to reduce dependency, why alternative energies should be looked at and what goes on in the rest of the world.

Snow warnings in May

Just a quick question -- what am I doing here?

It’s not some great existentialist question.

No this has more to do with wondering why I am living in a place that was 20 C yesterday and snowing today.

And not just a little snow either.

I’m counting down the days to Sudan and Uganda. Then what?

CMA/CNA Media Awards

Excellence in Local Reporting...

Health stories brought to light by excellence in reporting

The subtle addition of information

Favourite subtle addition of information of the week goes to my co-worker Tessa Holloway for the way she slipped in MP Randy Hoback was on vacation.

"Our constituents have more concerns on their minds," he said by phone Tuesday from California, where he is vacationing. "They want us to concentrate on jobs, get people back to work, and get the budget back in order. And that's what I'll focus on when I get back to Parliament and that's what I'm focusing on now."

The Globe and Mail called her the other day to see if he was still away...
See the original article here.

Helping Haiti

This morning I listened to CBC’s The Current as the host interviewed Jean-Louis Warnholz on economic opportunities in Haiti.
He listed off mango exports, tourism and the garment industry as major economic benefits to the nation that were just starting to grow before the earthquake.
I waited for Anna Maria Tremonti to take Warnholz to task.
“Garment industry, who is he kidding,” I thought.
The opportunity passed her by as she asked about Mango production.
So I will fill in the blanks.
The so-called garment industry in Haiti produces the GAP shirts, Levi Jeans and a number of Disney products. It is low-pay, long hours and bad conditions, in short sweatshops in free-trade zones. They are set up to benefit the corporations that use them, not support a society in need of stability.
In 1996 workers in the FTZ made about 28 cents a day. Now, they might make up to $1 or $2 a day, but not likely.
The very reason Haiti is in so much trouble is because it has been abused a place for cheap labour and given unfair treatments from the West for decades.
That needs to change if we really want to support the country.
Let not use this earthquake as a time to ram through policy change in the very same ‘shock and awe’ way the US did in Iraq.
Throwing the doors open to more transnational corporations, paying significantly below a living wage is not going to help Haitians get back on their feet now, or if something occurs again in the future.

Torch Relay

The day the Olympic torch came to town.

Once I got over the rampant commercialism I really enjoyed the torch run and as it was lit for the briefest of moments I felt connected to people all across the country.

Then the announcer said Coca Cola needed a big round of applause.

... another day older and deeper in debt

I have two degrees that came after six years of international experience
I have one year of international journalism experience
And am well into my second year of daily reporting
What does that get me?
Enough income to qualify for the low income credit handed out by the Saskatchewan Government.

*sigh*